Former prime minister Kevin Rudd said Senator Di Natale's description of him as a "sociopath" was inaccurate.Credit:Christopher Pearce

"I'm not going to take a lecture about division from a party that knifed a sitting prime minister, then knifed the first female prime minister of the country to bring the sociopath back in charge. Kevin Rudd was... I mean, that’s the description Labor colleagues give to [him]," Senator Di Natale said in an exchange with deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek.

During the program host Tony Jones appeared to suggest the term was defamatory.

"Can I just say, that’s almost certainly...and we’re going to have to say that is not the case, because we know there is a clinical definition of ‘sociopath’," Jones said.